1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to compositions and methods to induce weight loss, appetite suppression and as adjunctive therapies for fibromyalgia, sleep apnea, diabetes, hyperglycemia and arthritis and more particularly, to novel compositions of phenolic and indoleamine-like compounds which are obtainable in concentrations and amounts suitable for human use from certain botanicals or from chemical synthesis, together with methods for using, producing and harvesting same.
2. The Background Art
An estimated 35-40 million living Americans will suffer major depressive episodes, and many more will experience lesser bouts. Of the approximately 17.5 million Americans with ongoing depressions, about 9.2 million are at a clinically debilitating level. Clinical depression is characterized by a list of symptoms that last over a long time span. It is a serious problem that is usually or initially caused by outside stressors. As stresses escalate or persist, a chemical imbalance can result. Clinical depression can be very debilitating both physically and mentally and even lead to death by means of suicide. However, lost productivity and relationship problems are also consequences of lesser depressions. At present, antidepressant medications are the cornerstones of treating depression, especially those that are at least moderately severe. Although depressed people tend to improve when treated with antidepressants, many do not respond to the first one. Such individuals may eventually benefit from a different antidepressant or a combination of antidepressants.
Sexual dysfunction is a pervasive disorder. In the overall population, 43 percent of women and 31 percent of men between the ages of 18 and 59 repeatedly experience it. Sexual dysfunction includes lacking interest in sex, problems with arousal, not enjoying sex, and anxiety about sexual performance. Indeed, feeling good in general has significant impact on sexual function, with those people unhappy or depressed more likely to experience difficulties. Arousal problems affect over 20 million American males, about two in 10 adult men, with such difficulties often associated with or accompanied by some sort of depression. Meanwhile, prescription antidepressants actually exacerbate the situation, since a frequent side effect of their use is sexual dysfunction. In fact, sexual response diminishes in up to 75% of prescription antidepressant users.
There is a need for treatments to reduce depression or otherwise better mood with an accompanying enhancement of sexual response or desire, or at least no sexual dysfunction.
Prior work on the compounds of the invention has solely been on 6-methoxy-2,3-benzoxazolinone (6-MBOA). Its role in strengthening the resistance of monocotyledonous plants against a wide range of insect pests has been much studied. 6-MBOA and its chemical precursors also have allelopathic properties that inhibit root and shoot growth in competing species. Furthermore, it has antimicrobial properties. 6-MBOA appears constitutively during early stages of growth, localized in those tissues most exposed to microbial and insect attack.
It had been long suspected that compounds in plants affect the seasonal reproductive output of wild rodents. In 1981, 6-MBOA became the first naturally occurring compound in a plant verified as impacting seasonal reproductive cycling. Since then, a substantial body of work has accumulated on 6-MBOA as an initiator of seasonal breeding and an effector of population size for many rodents and a few birds. Compounds related to and possibly co-occurring with 6-MBOA remain unexplored in this regard.
Excessive weight (i.e., overweight) and obesity are part of the most rapidly growing public health concerns facing the world today. By the end of the 1980s, nearly one-fourth of Americans were overweight (a Body Mass Index (BMI) greater than 25, calculated as weight in kilograms/height in meters squared; Calle et al., “Body mass index and mortality in a prospective cohort of US adults”, New England Journal of Medicine 341:1097-1105, 1999) or obese (excess body weight more than 20 percent above average for height, bone structure and age, or a BMI exceeding 30). The number of overweight children has nearly tripled over the previous 20 years; and, the prevalence and incidence of type 2 diabetes, a disease for which obesity is a major factor, in adolescents has significantly increased over the same time. By 1999, about thirty-six percent (36%) of the total population, or more than 97,000,000 adults, may be considered overweight. Currently, it has been estimated that about sixty percent (60%) of American are overweight and about thirty percent (30%) of Americans may be considered obese.
Obesity has a similar epidemic pattern in Europe, and in 2002 it was estimated that more than 200 million people (about thirty-three percent (33%)) of the population could be considered overweight. In many European countries more than fifty percent (50%) of adults are now overweight, nearly triple the level prior to 1980. Germany has the most overweight men in Europe, with an incidence of seventy-one percent (71%). The United Kingdom is not far behind Germany with excess weight in more than sixty percent (60%) of the adult population.
Overweight and obesity are commonly associated with other serious health conditions. These conditions may be causes of increased morbidity in overweight and obese individuals. These serious health conditions and obesity are often referred to as being “co-morbid.” Being overweight is known to increase the risk of dying from many conditions, including 4 of the 10 leading causes of death: coronary heart disease, cancer, stroke and type 2 diabetes. Some epidemiological information suggests increases in mortality tend to parallel increases in body weight. In the United States, being overweight has become the second leading cause of preventable, premature death, with the associated annual loss of life exceeding 2,800,000 people (Allison et al., “Annual deaths attributable to obesity in the United States”, Journal of the American Medical Association 282:1530-1538, 1999).
Excessive weight and/or obesity may be due to uncontrollable and/or controllable factors. Uncontrollable factors may include heredity (i.e., genetics) and metabolic disorders. Controllable factors may include environment, physical inactivity, psychological circumstances, and poor eating habits established in childhood. Poor eating habits may include excessive intake as well as poor selection of foods with nutritional value. The controllable factors are often more responsible for the development of overweight and obesity.
Therapeutic approaches to overweight and obesity have included educational, physical, psychological and pharmacological modalities. Educational efforts have focused on informing individuals about caloric intake and making proper nutritional selections. Physical approaches have emphasized increasing physical activity in an effort to increase metabolism. Psychological approaches have focused on controlling appetite, manipulating mood and improving sense of well-being. Pharmacological approaches may include drugs and other agents to suppress appetite and/or increase cellular metabolism. There are a broad range of opinions as to how successful these therapeutic approaches have been either individually or collectively, but nevertheless, incidence and prevalence of overweight and obesity continue to increase. Regardless of cause, there is obvious need for treatments that can induce or otherwise promote weight loss.
Medications prescribed for losing weight often suppress appetite by way of mood enhancing attributes (Halpern et al., “Treatment of obesity. An update on anti-obesity medications”, Obesity Reviews 4:25-42, 2003) and may include, beta-phenethylamine derivatives (fenfluramine, phentermine, phendimetrazine, diethylpropion, and sibutramine); tricyclic derivatives (mazindol); a naftilamine derivative (sertraline); phenylpropanolamine derivatives (ephedrine, phenylpropanolamine); and a phenylpropanolamine oxytrifluorphenyl derivative (fluoxetine).
Ethnobotanists, pharmacognosists and medicinal chemists are constantly in search of new compounds from plant materials that have mood enhancing properties and possible therapeutic roles in weight loss. It had been long suspected that compounds in some plants effect the mood of wild rodents. These effects are sometimes examined by observing seasonal reproductive output. In 1981, 6-methoxy-2,3-benzoxazolinone (6-MBOA) became the first naturally occurring compound in a plant verified as impacting seasonal reproductive cycling. 6-MBOA may be found in varying concentrations in monocotyledonous plants. Since its discovery, a substantial body of work has accumulated on 6-MBOA as an initiator of seasonal breeding and an effector of population size for many rodents and a few birds.
6-MBOA is passed from adult females to offspring during gestation and lactation, with increased growth and larger gonads in the recipient young. Juveniles rely on the interaction of maternal photoperiod history and 6-MBOA to time the onset of growth and puberty. Adults fed a diet containing 6-MBOA produce more female progeny. When 6-MBOA is fed to pregnant females, gonadal development in the male offspring is enhanced.
For rodents, the inhibitory effects of melatonin on growth and reproduction are blocked partially by 6-MBOA (Gower et al., “Reproductive responses of male Microtus montanus to photoperiod, melatonin, and 6-MBOA”, Journal of Pineal Research, 8: 297-312, 1990). 6-MBOA may obstruct melatonin at the melatonin receptors or act independently to check melatonin action (Sweat et al., “Uterotropic 6-methoxybenzoxazolinone is an adrenergic agonist and melatonin analog, Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology, 57:131-138, 1988).
The high melatonin levels induced by 6-MBOA may cause desensitization of melatonin receptors (Daya et al., “Effect of 6-methoxy-2-benzoxazolinone on the activities of rat pineal N-acetyltransferase and hydroxyindole-O-methyltransferase and on melatonin production”, Journal of Pineal Research, 8:57-66, 1990), but not for all rodents (Anderson et al., “Effects of melatonin and 6-methoxybenzoxazolinone on photoperiodic control of testis size in adult male golden hamsters”, Journal of Pineal Research, 5:351-65, 1988).
This compound stimulates rather than inhibits melatonin biosynthesis and does not prevent stimulation of melatonin synthesis by norepinephrine (Yuwiler et al., “Effects of 6-methoxy-2-benzoxazolinone on the pineal melatonin generating system. J. Pharmacol. Exp. Ther. 233:45-50, 1985). 6-MBOA acts at both the alpha- (α-) and beta- (β-) adrenergic receptors (Daya et al., “Effect of 6-methoxy-2-benzoxazolinone on the activities of rat pineal N-acetyltransferase and hydroxyindole-O-methyltransferase and on melatonin production”, Journal of Pineal Research, 8:57-66, 1990), and stimulates adenylcyclase activity in the pineal, hypothalmus and pituitary glands (Sweat et al., “Uterotropic 6-methoxybenzoxazolinone is an adrenergic agonist and melatonin analog, Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology, 57:131-138, 1988).
Certain responses to 6-MBOA, like uterine hypertrophy, can be duplicated with estrogen, but 6-MBOA is not an estrogenic compound (Gower, “Endocrine effects of the naturally occurring reproductive stimulant, 6-methoxybenzoxazolinone”, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1990). Also, 6-MBOA increases the rate of synthesis of follicle stimulating hormone (Butterstein et al., “The plant metabolite 6-methoxybenzoxazolinone interacts with follicle-stimulating hormone to enhance ovarian growth”, Biology of Reproduction, 39:465-71, 1988) and pituitary prolactin (Vaughan et al., “Hormonal consequences of subcutaneous 6-methoxy-2-benzoxazolinone pellets or injections in prepubertal male and female rats”, Journal of Reproduction and Fertility, 83:859-66, 1988).
Hypothalamic luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone contents and pituitary gland weights are greater for at least one rodent species implanted with capsules containing 6-MBOA (Urbanski et al., “Influence of photoperiod and 6-methoxybenzoxazolinone on the reproductive axis of inbred LSH/Ss Lak male hamsters. Journal of Reproduction and Fertility, 90:157-163, 1990). The above studies cumulatively point to 6-MBOA acting in an area of the brain, which may be referred to as the pineal hypothalamic pituitary axis (PHPA), possibly as a melatonin agonist and at the α- and β-adrenergic receptors in its own right. The inventors recognized that 6-MBOA and the indoleamine, melatonin, share a structural similarity. However, melatonin exacerbates symptoms of dysphoria in depressed people. 6-MBOA, as a melatonin agonist, could prove contrary in this regard and actually improve mood. Yet, the inventors are not aware of any prior art that has explored or suggested the use of 6-MBOA and related compounds as having psychotropic effects in humans, particularly with respect to depression or mood.
An object of the invention is to develop therapies for depression and sexual dysfunction entailing use of compounds belonging to related chemical families, of which 6-MBOA is a member. Pursuant to this end, a further object is to develop methods for getting said compounds from plant and animal sources in amounts suitable for human therapeutic use.
While past research by those skilled in the art has attempted to isolate, identify and characterize new plant compounds with mood stimulating properties, 6-MBOA has heretofore previously not been identified or evaluated for mood elevation leading to appetite suppression and weight loss. Therefore, as readily appreciated by those skilled in the art, novel compounds isolated, produced and harvested from monocotyledonous plants and methods for using the same to suppress appetite and promote weight loss in mammals would be a significant advancement in the art. Such novel compositions and methods are disclosed and taught herein.